Events in Minneapolis have been nothing short of dizzying. Less than twenty-four hours after the city’s historic general strike against ICE, federal agents murdered ICU nurse Alex Pretti in cold blood and the streets exploded again. The need to discuss a way forward has never been more urgent.
The following day, over 300 fired-up Twin Cities workers and young people flooded into the Minneapolis Labor Center for a mass meeting called by Socialist Alternative. Many heard about the meeting from us while marching through the negative 30-degree cold, wanting to know how to get involved in the continued fightback against ICE. The result was a massive high-energy meeting that made one thing very clear: working-class Minnesotans are not backing down in the face of ICE terror.
An Electric Mass Meeting
The discussion was emceed by Chris Gray—a Socialist Alternative member, unionized special ed teacher, and neighbor to Alex Pretti. Chris set the tone of the meeting: “This is about divide and rule and terror…This is about trying to get people to lay down in front of a billionaire backed authoritarian regime which we are fighting back against in Minneapolis. And we’re building a model for how to defeat it here and around the world.”
They were joined by a panel of speakers including CWA Local 7250 President Kieran Knutson, Socialist Alternative member and shop steward for ATU Local 1005 Ryan Timlin, labor activist Kip Hedges, DSA organizer Emma Fletcher, and Drew Harmon from Minnesota 50501. When asked, “Who called out of work on Friday?” nearly every hand in the room shot up.
Speakers emphasized the historic significance of the January 23 strike, as well as the urgent need for union leaders to call for an even larger nationwide strike that targets major corporations across the country.
When the floor was opened up, attendees did not hold back, with some exclaiming, “We strike every Friday until ICE is out!” and even, “I say we strike again tomorrow!” Minnesota Association of Professional Employees member Lydia spoke to our collective power as workers, and how rapid response groups can be geared to further strike action.
A Starbucks worker at a non-union store explained how they organized their coworkers to strike on Friday, shutting down the store. Others spoke to the betrayals of Mayor Frey and the Democrats, and their lack of backbone to stand up to ICE. Calls for a new workers’ party were met with cheers.
We Need A Nationwide Strike
Absent from the meeting, but sorely needed, were leaders from some key unions who had endorsed the 1/23 strike, and less surprisingly, from unions who hadn’t. The role of the labor movement in calling for 1/23 was crucial in giving that strike the strength and momentum that it had, and in shutting down sections of the local economy. We need to strike again in the Twin Cities, and bigger, this time shutting down ALL profits.
This week, students at the University of Minnesota have initiated a call for student walkouts and a nationwide shutdown on 1/30, and Socialist Alternative has endorsed this day of action. We absolutely need a nationwide strike. To make this a reality, the full weight of significant sections of the labor movement must be at the heart of it, and their leaders need to be at grassroots meetings of fired up workers like these. There is no time to lose. Actions on 1/30 must call on the labor movement to join, and to build for an even larger nationwide strike that shuts down billionaire profits.
At the end of the day, ICE is the product of capitalism’s need for division of the working class and violent exploitation of the most marginalized communities. Shutting down ICE is a necessary step towards disrupting Trump’s deportation machine, and striking a blow to the billionaires who benefit from this divide-and-rule system.
But our fight does not end there. This is about building a mass force capable of changing society, and building a world free of all capitalist exploitation and oppression. As Knutson put it, “We have to understand where this enemy came from. We’re not just trying to get back to 2025, we are trying to get rid of this whole rotten system that has produced this crisis we are in today.”
